I made the above curry last night; I found it using the Epicurious app. I used light coconut milk rather than the full-bore stuff, and it came off really well. It also made about eight one-cup servings, which means for one hour’s work I got four nights of dinner.
And this should take you to all the stuff I routinely cook: the ginger yam tofu, the white turkey chile, the invisible spaghetti and light alfredo sauce… and so much more.
While some of you are madly writing, and writing, I am reading. I am starting with a series I love, something Kelly and I both read annually. This year’s edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011
I have already learned exciting things about fermentation. How cool is that?
And, since these are articles, I am also going to embark on reading a novel… just as soon as I pick one out.
I spent the afternoon looking over copy-edits to my other-world fantasy novelette, “Among the Silvering Herd,” which will be appearing on Tor.com in, I believe, late January. I am very pleased and excited about this sale: Tor is a wonderful showcase for fiction, and when “The Cage” appeared there last year, I was blown away by how much people liked the story. I was also dazzled by Marcos Chin‘s cover art.
(“The Cage
“Among the Silvering Herd” is the first of The Gales, a number of stories I’ve written and/or intend to write in this setting, a world most commonly known by the name of Stormwrack. They feature the redoubtable Gale Feliachild, who sails the nine seas poking her nose where it emphatically isn’t wanted. Her partner in troublemaking is the terribly handsome first mate of her sailing vessel, a young man by the name of Garland Parrish. They’ve been fun to write and I hope they’re fun to read; I also hope to make many such announcements about The Gales in the future.
A few weeks ago I decided that it would be good for all of us if Rumble got a bit of a run in every night before bedtime. What’s spilled from that decision is the following bedtime routine:
First, there’s a bit of hopeful chirping as the evening winds down. “Are you going to bed now? How about now? Now?” This is, in fact, an improvement over his snoozing all evening on the bed, resting up so he can wake me at three in the morning for a snuggle, get threatened with Squirty Bottle, and stampede in terror over Kelly’s sleeping form.
When bedtime finally comes, I have a little snack and get out of my clothes, all while Rum lurks about impatiently, with an air of “You’re not gonna forget, right?”
I then drag the peacock feather around our bed while he chases and pounces and tries to kill and kill again.
Meanwhile, Minnow, who’s realized that Fun is being Had, sits in the kitchen sending Big eye vibes of Hope through the wall.
Once Rumble’s wiped out, I leave him with a feather to gnaw and close him in the bedroom so he can’t beat the crap out of her for getting involved. This is necessary because a) he’s not dumb; b) Minnow playtime is a high-volume, impossible to miss scrabble of claws on the faux-hardwood floor. I take the other peacock feather and set Minnow on a mad, looping, acrobatic feather chase in the kitchen (I was using a laser pointer to run her around, but I dropped it and it died, and I haven’t replaced it yet.) Anyway, this goes on until…
Rumble starts crying piteously at the bedroom door and Kelly has her face washed and jammies on.
I am hoping to get video, but of course they tend to stiffen up when the camera comes, usually in an attitude of “Oh, did you want a close-up of what’s right under my tail?”
I have been thinking about it a lot this past week and it is clear to me that, fun though it would be, spending all of November writing new fiction isn’t the best use of my time. So, while some of you are madly novelizing, I plan to spend the stretch from now to mid-December doing two things: putting final touches on the current novel in progress and reading as much as I possibly can.
Meego Read Mo, I’m calling it. I have a bunch of research books to mow through, and the remainder of the horror rereads, and the The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011
I’ll report how it’s going, just as I would if I were writing a book.
I like Nanowrimo. I’ve done some good writing in past Novembers and I am sure some future year will play out so that I can participate again. It was a bit tough to let the idea go, because I love writing draft and I love playing with the Nano community. But with one book 85% done and things going well, it just doesn’t make sense to hare off in a completely different direction.
photo by Kristy Boyce
The Color of Paradox
The Cage
